She and Allan eBook

“I am ready to make this journey through the
gate of Death, Ayesha, if indeed you can show me the
road. For one purpose and no other I came to
Kor, namely to learn, if so I might, whether those
who have died upon the world, live on elsewhere.
Now, what must I do?”

CHAPTER XXI

THE LESSON

“Yes,” answered Ayesha, laughing very
softly, “for that purpose alone, O truth-seeking
Allan, whose curiosity is so fierce that the wide world
cannot hold it, did you come to Kor and not to seek
wealth or new lands, or to fight more savages.
No, not even to look upon a certain Ayesha, of whom
the old wizard told you, though I think you have always
loved to try to lift the veil that hides women’s
hearts, if not their faces. Yet it was I who
brought you to Kor for my own purposes, not your desire,
nor Zikali’s map and talisman, since had not
the white lady who lies sick been stolen by Rezu,
never would you have pursued the journey nor found
the way hither.”

“How could you have had anything to do with
that business?” I asked testily, for my nerves
were on edge and I said the first thing that came
into my mind.

“That, Allan, is a question over which you will
wonder for a long while either beneath or beyond the
sun, as you will wonder concerning much that has to
do with me, which your little mind, shut in its iron
box of ignorance and pride, cannot understand to-day.

“For example, you have been wondering, I am
sure, how the lightning killed those eleven men whose
bodies you went to look on an hour or two ago, and
left the rest untouched. Well, I will tell you
at once that it was not lightning that killed them,
although the strength within me was manifest to you
in storm, but rather what that witch-doctor of your
following called wizardry. Because they were traitors
who betrayed your army to Rezu, I killed them with
my wrath and by the wand of my power. Oh! you
do not believe, yet perhaps ere long you will, since
thus to fulfil your prayer I must also kill you—­almost.
That is the trouble, Allan. To kill you outright
would be easy, but to kill you just enough to set
your spirit free and yet leave one crevice of mortal
life through which it can creep back again, that is
most difficult; a thing that only I can do and even
of myself I am not sure.”

“Pray do not try the experiment——­”
I began thoroughly alarmed, but she cut me short.

“Disturb me no more, Allan, with the tremors
and changes of your uncertain mind, lest you should
work more evil than you think, and making mine uncertain
also, spoil my skill. Nay, do not try to fly,
for already the net has thrown itself about you and
you cannot stir, who are bound like a little gilded
wasp in the spider’s web, or like birds beneath
the eyes of basilisks.”

This was true, for I found that, strive as I would,
I could not move a limb or even an eyelid. I
was frozen to that spot and there was nothing for
it except to curse my folly and say my prayers.